Data Scientists vs. BI Analysts: What's the Difference?

Business intelligence and data science often go hand in hand. Both fields focus on deriving business insights from data, yet data scientists are regularly touted as the unicorns of big data analysis. Why is this? The fact is, while many of the responsibilities, techniques and goals of analysts and data scientists closely match, major differences exist between the required skillsets — and expected outputs — for each job. Let’s explore a few of the most important ones. BI Analysts Focus More on the ‘What’ than the ‘Why’ A BI analyst’s main task is to find patterns and trends in your business’s historical data. That makes BI largely an exploration of past trends, while data science finds the predictors and significance behind those trends. Both views are ultimately valuable and complementary.…